Oklahoma City Thunder Roll

Oklahoma City Thunder’s Dion Waiters (right) and Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs vie for the ball in Game Six of the NBA Western Conference semi-finals in Oklahoma City on Thursday. (Photo: AFP)

Kevin Durant scored 37 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder completed a 4-2 series victory over the San Antonio Spurs to advance to a Western Conference finals showdown with the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. He left the game to a standing ovation after a superb personal contribution that also included nine rebounds and two assists.

“We’re not done yet,” Durant said, adding “We have to keep improving. Keep getting better and get ready for the next series.”

The host Thunder punched their ticket to their fourth Western Conference finals in six years with a 113-99 victory in front of a crowd of 18,200 at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

The finals will be a chance for Oklahoma City to avenge their regular-season record against the Warriors, where they lost all three games.

San Antonio, NBA finals champions as recently as 2014, were always struggling against a powerful Thunder team led by Durant and Russell Westbrook, who finished with 28 points.

“We just came out with great intensity,” said Westbrook, who had two back-to-back strong performances against the Spurs. “We knew how important this game was.”

“They been a great team for years. Tonight was a tough game but we came out with the win,” he added.

Oklahoma City showed that when either Durant or Westbrook get in a groove, they are tough to beat and when both get going at the same time, it’s almost impossible to stop them.

The Spurs had trailed by as much as 26 points at one stage in the game, but despite narrowing the gap in the fourth quarter, were always struggling to overhaul the deficit.

The Thunder continued their rebounding dominance with a 50-40 advantage. They turned the ball over 12 times, while the Spurs gave the ball away just 10 times. Oklahoma City outshot San Antonio from the floor, 47 percent to 43 percent.

“Game one they just outplayed us,” Durant said of the Spurs, who won the series opener by 32 points.

The semifinal exit could conceivably mark the end of the road for at least two of San Antonio’s long-serving veterans, with Tim Duncan, 40 and Manu Ginobili, 38, in the twilight of their NBA careers.